Western Lit (4/24/06) FINAL

[theoenophile.livejournal.com]

"My apologies for the lack of class last week, guys. If any of you actually spent the time studying... I'd be very surprised. I wouldn't've. But then, I'm a depressed, semi-alcoholic novelist who can't publish a novel and is forced to make ends meet as a high school English teacher."

"You may be completely unsurprised to learn that I will not be renewing my contract for this summer or next fall. This will be our last class together."

"Anyway, your final projects are due. Please make your presentation based on your written final project." [from the Syllabus]

"I will post your grades as soon as they are completed."

Comments

Re: Turn in your project

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

Hamlet did his essay on the Odyssey.

The Odyssey is a Greek epic ascribed to Homer between 800 and 600 B.C., about the return home of Odysseus after the Trojan War. It takes Odysseus ten years to return to his native land of Ithaca; in his absence, his son Telemachus and his wife Penelope must deal with a group of unruly suitors who compete for Penelope's hand in marriage, since it is assumed that Odysseus has died. The poem is considered one of the foundational texts of the Western canon and continues to be read in both Homeric Greek and translations around the world. While today's Odyssey is usually a printed text, the original poem was an oral composition sung by a trained bard, in an amalgamated Ancient Greek dialect, using a regular metrical pattern called dactylic hexameter. Each line of the original Greek was composed of six feet; each foot a dactyl or a spondee. Among the most impressive elements of the text are its strikingly modern non-linear plot, and its elevation of the status of women and the lower classes.